5 affordable ways to reduce chemical exposure in your home

We’re getting new windows in our home tomorrow. Well, we’re getting 5 new windows. I’m excited because it means we can get some serious airflow in our home, which we bought last year. It’s just one of the ways to reduce chemical exposure in our home. The other major thing we did was eradicate about 75% of our carpet. We still have a few rooms left, but it’s so nice to have most of it gone.

We’re still working on some other ways to make our home healthier and safer, but it’s a start. I’ve been working with Healthy Child Healthy World and Seventh Generation to learn about living in a safe home, and how to share my knowledge with others.

5 affordable ways to reduce chemical exposure in your home

Healthy Child, Healthy World offers five simple, affordable actions families can take daily at home to decrease chemical exposure…

1.Take off your shoes at the door: 85 percent of the dirt in our homes is tracked inside on the bottom of our shoes. It’s not just dirt, but toxics like lead, pesticides, gasoline residue and more. Keep your home safer by taking off your shoes. It’s the public health equivalent of washing your hands.

2. Buy safer body care: Children are exposed to an average of 27 care product ingredients on a daily basis that have not been found safe for developing bodies. Protect your family’s health by avoiding products with ingredients like parabens, synthetic fragrances & triclosan. For a list of most-toxic offenders, download our free eBook, “Easy Steps to a Healthy & Safe Nursery.”

3. Open a window: People spend about 90 percent of their time inside, but indoor air is typically far more polluted than outside. So, open those windows! Even a few minutes a day can improve indoor air quality.

4. Eat more whole foods: Processed foods may be convenient, but they’re also loaded with sweeteners, artificial flavors and colorings, and synthetic preservatives. These lack nutrients and many are also linked to health issues like ADHD and even cancer.
• Research from the University of Washington suggests you can immediately and dramatically reduce the pesticide content in a child’s body by switching to organic foods.
• Stonyfield Organic offers an arrangement of foods for babies, kids and adults; pure, delicious organic yogurts, smoothies, soy yogurts, ice cream and milk.
• They are all made without:
o Synthetic hormones
o Toxic Persistent Pesticides
o GMOs
o Artificial Ingredients

5. Ban the can: Bisphenol-A (BPA), a hormone disruptor that has been linked to everything from obesity to cancer, is in the plastic resin that lines most canned goods—from soups to sodas. Look for foods packaged in glass or eat fresh, dried, and frozen options.

Even if you can just start with one of these steps, you can start making your home a healthier one. You don’t have to replace all of your windows like me (I’m just excited to have windows that I can safely open!) but you can start taking your shoes off, or maybe buy less canned food (or eliminate it completely).

What: Join the Seventh Generation Healthy Baby Twitter Party – which brings Healthy Baby Home Parties online. The home parties were developed in partnership with Healthy Child Healthy World <http://healthychild.org/> to give moms like us a platform to share parenting ideas and rally our friends around topics that resonate deeply – like creating a healthy environment for our babies and kids. We’ll share tips and advice for creating a toxin-free home environment for your kids, ingredients to avoid, recommended products and more.

When: Tuesday, June 25, at 1p ET / noon CT / 10a PT

Where: We’ll be on Twitter – follow the #HealthyBaby hashtag to track the conversation. You can see the details and RSVP via this Twtvite: http://twtvite.com/healthybabyparty

Hashtag: #HealthyBaby

Prizes: Five prizes will be awarded throughout the party to participants who respond correctly to trivia questions. Each winner will receive a package of Seventh Generation products.

Hosts: @theMotherhood, @CooperMunroe, @EmilyMcKhann, @SeventhGen

ENTER TO WIN A HEALTHY BABY PRIZE PACK!

Enter on the Rafflecopter below to win a Healthy Baby prize pack from our sponsors with diapers, wipes, soaps and more!!

What steps will you take to reduce chemical exposure in your home?

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Kerri Jablonski AKA The Maven lives in Seattle,WA with her 3 kids (2008, 2010, 2013), husband, cat and backyard chickens. Two of her children have special needs. Kerri enjoys cooking, travel, movies and spending time with her family.